Empty chairs at empty tables

I forgot to mention, we gave Owen his first 'real' bath on Sunday (previously we'd opted for the sponge route). He was quiet and happy with it, even nearly falling asleep at one point.

Last night marked the departure of mima and papa, so our local family is once again down to four -- but only for a little while, as mima and papa will be moving out to join us in a few short weeks!

Last night also marked the return of Zachary escaping his crib -- this time after being put to bed (rather than nap), and this time as a recurring event. Friends B and J had generously brought us dinner, but I spent much of their visit upstairs trying to get him down. I started by actually snuggling him into his bed, but he kept grabbing my arm and wanting me to stay with him. Eventually he went back into his old crib. I snuck downstairs, but heard his door swing open moments later. We started just doing the "minimal feedback" thing of putting him back in bed without saying anything, smiling, etc. It was perhaps the low double digits before he finally did conk out for the night; I had to sneak a peek slightly later on to confirm that he hadn't just gone to sleep on the floor of his room. In the meantime, I took the opportunity to flip the doorknob on his new room so the lock is on the outside -- hopefully we wouldn't ever have to lock him in, but if he's exploring his room rather than sleeping, I wouldn't want him to lock us out! Tonight Meh has choir, so I think we'll make an attempt to switch him to his new room and big boy bed.

Mouth full

Today, mima and papa accompanied us to the outdoor shopping mall; we had a few things to return/exchange, it's got one of the few Seattle grocery stores with a reasonable passover food selection, and they've also got a nice play area for Zachary (which happens to be dangerously close to our favorite cupcake bakery). We started off with lunch at one of our favorite kaiten sushi restaurants, where Zachary has as much fun watching the conveyor belts and colored lights as we do picking out our sushi choices; Meh was particularly pleased to be able to eat raw fish again after her imposed pregnancy ban.

Lately at restaurants we've been trying to order Zachary some food of his own. Even though he generally shakes his head at trying it (or only eats the component parts that he's familiar with - raisins, chocolate chips, etc.), he's been doing a great job of labelling the foods. At lunch on Friday for instance, he happily said 'kah' (quesadilla) and [a slightly different] 'kah' (carrot) without actually touching the lovely cheesy tortilla goodness or fresh carrot sticks we'd gotten for him. (As you can see, he was also texting at the table - how rude!) He's also been getting very good at patiently waiting at the table while we finish eating, even if he decides that he isn't hungry.

Anyway, so this same sort of event played out at the sushi-go-round: he pointed at the lights, patiently played with his chopsticks, and when we placed a piece of kappa maki in front of him, he would occasionally point at it and say 'sah-shah!' (sushi). I didn't think much of the fact that he didn't actually eat the piece. At the very end of the meal, I got his jacket back on and then asked him to say bye-bye to the sushi. He looked at me, then grabbed the maki, held it for a moment, and shoved it into his mouth. Amazing!

Granted, the sushi stayed in his mouth, unchewed and unswallowed, for a good ten minute walk around the mall. He looked like a deer in the headlights most of the time, but I couldn't get him to commit to either eat it or spit it out. Finally, I came up with the idea to offer him his milk. He tried to drink it, but realized the sushi was in the way, and only then elected to thoughtfully chew and swallow it, before washing it down with the milk. 私たちの息子は非常に愚かな男の子です！ (That's meant to translate to "Our son is a very silly boy!")

Census Building

Our 2010 census form has arrived, and I got to fill out four members for our household; Owen has arrived just in time to hopefully sway Washington state to an extra member or two of congress! (Say the cynics: great, just what we need.) Owen continues to spend a fair amount of time quiet and alert, just looking out at the world with his big eyes. He also doesn't seem to mind occasionally chilling out in the baby papasan that Zachary never really cared for, though being held by mommy (or other family members) is still the clear favorite.

The last few days have continued to be a nice visit with our family; in between an Uncle B and Aunt J trip to Victoria, Zachary and I took grandma, Uncle B, and Aunt J over to Volunteer Park and the Seattle Asian Art Museum on Wednesday. Zachary was already almost out for his nap, so while everyone else checked out the museum, he and I wandered into the warm greenhouses of the Conservatory. He pointed at some cacti and said "tah!" (tree), and thought some of the colorful flowers were funny. He then promptly conked out once we were back outside. Silly man. Then on Thursday, while Uncle B and Aunt J took a day trip to Victoria, grandma and I took Zachary to his penultimate swimming lesson for this quarter. He had a wonderful time as always, getting to try out a life jacket (his favorite activity was being launched in the air and then freeform landing/righting himself with the life jacket on) and running along a floating foam board before jumping into the water. He then picked up a new pool-related milestone at home tonight, starting to blow bubbles in the water. (This is apparently one of the requirements to progress to the next class level, so perfect timing!)

My family all heads home tomorrow; it's been wonderful having them here (I've gotten a few naps in, often at the same time as Zachary's), and this has been a nice way to start to get a handle on how to coordinate the two boys with a lot of extra assistance. It's going to be interesting when it's just the four of us next week!

Tall tale

Zachary's interactions with Owen took another step forward today, with Zachary looking down into Owen in the car seat and saying "Oh-wee". No touching yet, though he did extend his hand toward him in a moderately kiss-the-ring looking style.

Owen had his first appointment with the pediatrician today. Everything was looking great, though as usual, the doctor's office will likely be associated with unpleasant sensations, as he got his second PKU poke in the heel. (Wow, I just connected that to the previously enigmatic phenylketonuric warning you always see on diet soda. Go figure.) Anyway, the stats:

Weight: 8 lbs 8 oz (25th-50th percentile)
Height: 21 5/8" (90th percentile if I'm reading the chart correctly)

He's already well over his birth weight, which was great to see (they typically give it two weeks). And the doctor believes he's going to share his brother's blue eyes. (She then proceeded to list all of her favorite dreamy male movie stars with blue eyes. Meh helped out with her own favorites, and I contributed Jude Law.) Lastly, the doctor repeated the request she'd first directed at Zachary two and a half years ago, reminding Owen that allowing his parents to sleep would make for happier and better parents. We'll have to see if he listens any better than Zachary did!

Beware the Ides of March

After an epic struggle against gale winds and massively delayed flights, Zachary and Owen's Uncle B and Aunt J arrived late last night from New York. A huge huge thank you to them for bravely dealing with the delays and headaches to join us in meeting Owen and getting to catch up with Zachary! There was even some high quality playtime with Zachary and snuggle time with Owen this morning before the big event; today was Owen's eighth day, and thus his brit milah.

Friends S, R, and I all had completely coordinated the setup - again, we've got such wonderful, devoted, and supportive friends! Despite getting held up and detoured by a police blockade after a shootout a few miles down the road (never a dull moment!), they arrived and put out an amazing spread of food and decorations. There was even a giant blow-up balloon of Thomas the Tank Engine, which Zachary kept pointing at and talking about throughout breakfast; by the afternoon, I'd transferred it up to his room, where it's been getting equal attention to the circling airplane mobile overhead.

We used the same mohel as for Zachary, who was again extremely helpful and patient in explaining the various traditions. Mima and grandma were again the kvatters (bringing the baby in for the ceremony), and friend J honored us by acting as the sondek (who holds the baby during the ceremony). Owen did pretty well, though he did have his own input into the ceremony, peeing on folks when the diaper came off. (The experienced mohel had had me set aside some extra diapers and wipes for just such an eventuality.) Owen's hebrew name was announced as Lev Shlomo (לב שלמה). Lev (Hebrew for 'heart') is for Meredith's great grandmother Lilian, and Shlomo (Hebrew for 'God's peace') is for my dad.

After the ceremony, there was a wonderful smorgasboard of yummy foods to celebrate with: quiches, bagels with all possible fixing, multiple kinds of full-size (direct from New York, thanks Aunt J!) and mini-cupcakes, two slightly over-toasted challahs that I'd baked (but neglected in the final frantic minutes before people started arriving), fruits, couscous, little tartlets, and even a cake from our favorite bakery. I think we'll be set foodwise for the rest of the week! Full bris photo coverage (fear not, there isn't that kind of coverage) can be found here. Huge thanks to all of our friends and family who were able to make it on a weekday (and despite the, ah, aforementioned police incident), and we certainly look forward to Owen getting to meet everyone else (and getting to have slightly quieter and, ah, painless visits) in the days and weeks to come!

Owen Goes Cordless

I forgot to mention yesterday - Owen's already lost his cord! It disappeared somewhere between diaper changes yesterday, and everything looks to be healing quickly. Zachary's had departed a bit later on (soon after his bris), so already some differences between the two boys. On that topic, I know there's a huge temptation to censor direct comparisons as favoring or judging one boy against the other, but my feeling is that they're both just different little boys and it's okay to talk about those differences, right? Meanwhile, both Meh and I have caught ourselves inadvertently calling Owen by Zachary's name on a few occasions. Learning a new name perfectly right off the bat is tough!

On the topic of names, Zachary has now progressed to starting to point at Owen (or more frequently his picture on that loop of photos I put into the Xbox) and then calling him "o-wee" (or sometimes "o-wah").

Owen continues to spend more and more time awake and in that "quiet alert" state, which we think for him looks like a continual state of wide-eyed shock. He got to meet his Aunt I today. Then grandma, Aunt I, and I took Zachary to the park to give mommy and Owen a little quiet time (and let Zachary run around like a crazy man on various toys, swings, and slides). Aunt I brought Zachary's new favorite toys: a set of toy monster trucks ("mah-mah!"). He already loved the word from his favorite book, and now he's got four of them to push around and say "uh-oh" and "crash!" about.

You're So Vain

Owen got to meet many of mommy's coworkers in yesterday's family outing to the library. Zachary wasn't as interested in socializing as running around and climbing up and down the stairs, so he and I tired ourselves out on the wide staircases (perhaps to the dismay of other patrons trying to get up and down them) while mommy made the introductions.

More progress on the adapting-to-a-new-sibling front: this morning, Owen hung out in mima and papa arms while Zachary had breakfast, and Z was suddenly very interested and smiling at the tiny little man. And mommy can read Z books successfully without him having to be in her lap (which was a challenge when Owen was already there). So definitely some improvements!

In preparation for Owen's bris on Monday, I put together a folder of pictures for the Xbox to cycle through (figuring folks likely won't get much of a chance to spend much time with him in person). I tried it out today and Zachary immediately sat down, started watching, and now loves it perhaps even more than his favorite TV show. He keeps pointing at the TV and labelling people and objects in the pictures. For Owen, I was proud that he eventually started saying 'ba-ba' (baby), though not yet his actual name. Almost more entertaining was what he *did* label. One picture had his lego set just barely visible in a corner of the frame, and he kept pointing it out ("wa-ka!"). But he's been great at identifying the people and objects in pictures as well. Of course his favorite pics are of himself.

Grandma arrived today from Michigan today (and Aunt I is due in in a few hours from Maryland). Zachary readily identified grandma as "ga-ga", and was happy to have another fun family members to play with! Grandma was of course delighted to meet her second grandson and spend some quality time with both of them. Despite the communal lack of sleep, I was finally in town this year for the Harmony Sweeps competition, so with Meh's permission (and the very supportive Mima and Papa handling Zachary's bedtime routine) I'm going to push through and head down to Olympia tonight to cheer on my favorite all-Microsoft a cappella group -- good luck Baudboys!

The Name Game

Yesterday was Owen's well baby appointment back at the hospital's postpartum center. It was somewhat surreal (and certainly a source of deja vu, as we'd visited this same post partum center with Zachary in tow 2.5 years ago) to be back 48 hours later, but everything was looking great and the staff had some good ideas for us. They also have a fabulous shop full of baby and new mommy paraphernalia, so Meh went to town while I watched Owen snoozing away in the snap n' go carseat. I got to overhear a few other parents checking their youngsters in, and there were no Owens (we've gotten many compliments on the name, as well as a few inquiries on its increasing popularity; fear not, it still isn't quite in the top 50.)

It just so happened that we learned that earlier the same morning, Zachary's nanny J (whose son T is just about Zachary's age) had given birth at the same hospital - talk about close pairs of kids! Congrats to J and A on their new daughter!

Early modelling career

Our Flickr stats over the past few days have blown away previous measurements; 916 pictures were viewed yesterday alone - yikes! No pressure to take good pictures or anything. But if ours weren't compelling enough, I absolutely encourage folks to check out the amazing ones we had professionally taken this morning. (This link is to a sampling of the first few; we're looking forward to getting proofs in the next few weeks!) K had done an incredible maternity shoot back in January, and we'd scheduled a baby shoot for after Owen arrived. Due to schedule challenges, it had to either be today or not for a week and a half -- so off we went with Owen while mima and papa took Zachary to play and have lunch.

The baby shoot was even more wonderful than the maternity shoot had been. She keeps her studio at a very cozy 85 degrees so the babies can be snuggly and warm, and Owen slept through much of the session, generating some great and cozy photos along the way. The only thing we weren't able to accomplish was one of her "signatures", where the baby is placed in a suspended sling and hangs out cozily for some mid-air modelling. Owen was a little too active (even when half asleep) for that to work out this time around.

Oh, with the guess-Owen's-due-date poll now closed down, I just wanted to report back on the results. One person of our 14 entrants did guess the correct date - congratulations! Whoever it is can come visit Owen at their leisure and change the diaper of their choice. Or something. I actually noticed that a second entrant "guessed" 3/8 after he was already born and announced; we'll have to expunge that one from the permanent records. :) For those keeping score, guesses were:

3/2 (1)
3/3 (3)
3/4 (4)
3/5 (2)
3/7 (1)
3/8 (1 + the aforementioned expunged vote)
3/9 (2)

Thanks for helping us count down to Gooshie/Owen!

Oh brother

Everything feels like it's in fast motion with Owen! The hospital staff had been great and very supportive, and it was nice to stay in the same room through the entire experience. Meh and I even found time to watch most of a movie early yesterday evening. But 30 hours after arriving at the hospital, we were still ready to make our way back home this morning. The rear-facing carseat was reinstalled, Owen was dressed in his first actual non-hospital-issued outfit, sitting in his car seat (unhappy like his brother once was, though some gentle swinging seemed to soothe him - already a bit of a difference!), and the rear-facing car seat snapped back into the base.

Next, Owen's first true test: meeting his brother. I'd visited Zachary last night and given him bed time, but he hadn't seen mommy since bedtime on Sunday. So she went in first and was greeted with a giant hug. I followed subtly with Owen in the car seat. Zachary didn't really pay attention to him -- until he was in mommy's arms. Then suddenly he really wanted to be up, and daddy just wouldn't do. He was distracted short of a full meltdown, but so begins a hopefully short-lived rivalry. Later on while Meh was feeding Owen, Zachary again decided her lap was where he needed to be, so there will definitely be some, ah, "learning opportunities" to explore in the coming months.

Once again a huge thanks to friends J and S, who had watched and entertained Zachary for nearly two straight days (starting again at the delightful time of 2:30 am on Monday). We've got so many wonderful and supportive friends to help us during this enormous life transition!

Mima and Papa had fortuitously pre-scheduled their flight to arrive at noon today (this despite not voting for a date on the blog poll!), so I went to pick them up soon after we got back home. They were of course delighted to meet their second grandson and get to play with their first, who correctly (more or less) identified them as 'mama' and 'papa' and was happy to see them. And the "relearning" has begun - I assembled two pack & plays today and stocked them with all of Owen's goodies (though alas, size 1 diapers are still too big, so I'll have to make a run to the drug store tomorrow for N's).

Welcome, Owen Lev!

We are delighted to announce the arrival of Owen Lev Selfon! Owen was born this morning at 7:34 am. The stats:

Weight: 8 lbs 5 oz (3784 grams for the metric lovers among us)
Height: 21.06" (53.5 cm)
OFC: 13.58" (34.5 cm) [that's the head circumference]
Apgar: 8 (@ 1 min), 9 (@ 5 min)

Friends J and S graciously answered our 2:15 am wakeup call to stay with Zachary, and we arrived at the hospital a little after 3 am. Four hours (and a lot of mommy work) later, we got to meet Owen in person. He's already had several quiet alert periods, looking around and being super snuggly, and objecting vocally (but very cutely) to the typical poking and prodding that hospitals impose on newborns.

The bris is still to be scheduled, but for right now we're just excited to start to get to know him. Zachary will likely get to meet his brother tomorrow, and we've already been told that everything is looking great and we'll hopefully be able to go home tomorrow morning. Thanks to everyone already for all of the well wishes!

On the seventh day...

Six days have come and gone since the due date, and while Meh is increasingly uncomfortable, Gooshie apparently isn't ready to meet the world quite yet.

Lately we've been focusing on trying to stay within a few hundred feet of each other; even when Meh took a hill-less shortcut home from a walk to the park yesterday (the stroller wouldn't make it) while Zachary and I took the main path, I was a bit worried until we all arrived back at home. So it was a slightly bigger worry for me to drive off into the city last night for my orchestra's winter concert. Yes, the cellphone remained in my pocket, though in the end the question wasn't whether Meh would have Gooshie but whether I could actually make the concert in time - traffic was unusually atrocious and I ended up not hitting my seat until two minutes past the starting time. Thankfully a full audience meant we started a good three minutes later.

On the ball

Gooshie's very first crate o' diapers (along with some slightly larger diaper reinforcements for Zachary) arrived yesterday afternoon -- a mere 16 hours after I ordered them, what's their secret? Anyway, after I unloaded the contents, Meh had the excellent idea to use the remaining empty box to try out a bag of ball pit plastic balls she'd picked up for the little man. Suffice it to say he loved it:

This morning, Meh checked in with her midwives and got to take a non-stress test. Everything is looking good with Gooshie, who from the subsequent ultrasound apparently already has "some" hair. Color and amount still to be determined!

This afternoon we all went to lunch and then ran some Zachary and Gooshie-related errands, walking across a large outdoor shopping center. (Later we graduated to carting; Zachary pointed at one, said "kaht", and was very happy to be placed in it.) During the on-foot portion of our walk, we spotted the Seattle Humane Society's adoption truck parked at the mall, and Zachary said "bus!" while happily running up to it. First he was licked by one of the tame rescue dogs welcoming everyone to the bus, and he was very happy and giggly about that. Then I tried to point out the various cats in the transparent windowed bus -- but he was already off like a shot to the pet mobile's front passenger side door, where he commanded it to "open!" and then started climbing up onto the step and knocking on the cab door while saying "nah-nah-nah" (knock-knock-knock). Such a cute little man!

Three and Out

(Or should that be three and in?) It's day three of Gooshie watch 2010, and already 50% of our poll-takers are proven wrong; that Gooshie is certainly one tough bookie. I've taken to staying home starting today (a two-and-a-half year old is exhausting even if you aren't nine months pregnant!), though impressively, Meh still went to work. Zachary and I visited her as part of a very full day of reading books (often the same ones repeatedly), playing at a park near mommy's work, grocery shopping, and a Scandinavian shopping and lunch trip (I had to force myself to eat his super-tasty macaroni and cheese when he declined).

Today I also ordered some old standbys from Zachary's early days - Butt Paste, some extra-gentle wipes, and perhaps most importantly, a crate of size 1 diapers. The room transition also continues -- we've been doing more and more of the bedtime routine in the big boy room, until now everything short of actually going to bed takes place there. That step will likely wait a bit, but it's good to see how smoothly he's made the transition (even if after bathtime he still tends to run naked into his own old room before remembering that the clothes, books, and story time are the other direction).

Dated Materials

It's here! Today is Gooshie's due date. No news yet, but to keep things interesting, I've opened up a poll (see it to the right) where you can guess Gooshie's birthday. Winners get to, um, meet Gooshie? But so does everyone else of course. :)

The (Extreme) West End

Zachary's new bedroom continues to come together, with a new shelf (yup, another of the ones that had finally taught me the value of attaching shelving to studs in that mildly disastrous guest room incident) now populated with some of our favorite items from friends and travels, including a Muji "city in a bag", a group of fun wooden toy buildings shaped like London landmarks. Meh had also picked up a cute wall decal of a London double decker bus (from a UK-based Etsy-listed artist, no less) that we mounted right inside Zachary's door. He came to check it out and was very excited by the "busssss" and its wheels. The decal came with all of the numbers, so you could specify the bus number. I of course took on the challenge of figuring out the most appropriate route for his bus. The "ideal" route (which hits both Trafalgar Square [near the hotel we typically stay at], Oxford and Piccadilly Circuses, and Golders Green/Finchley [where our friends N & S live]) was the unluckily number 13, and while we aren't particularly superstitious, that just seemed unnecessary for Z's room. So we instead opted for the route number that matches Z's month and day of birth, the number 8, which still reaches Oxford Circus, Tottenham Court Road, and St. Paul from its origins in East London. Nothing like a little piece of the East End on the Eastside -- of Seattle, that is.

Turn the lights down low

Another step towards transitioning Zachary to his own room: last night I installed a dimmer in his new bedroom. The previous binary on/off switch had been a problem over the last few days; his clothes have made the move into his new room, and when I'd try to get him dressed while (sadly) it was still dark outside, there was either random guesses as to clothes or brief flips of the light. For his end, Zachary likes to turn on the lights and then squint/smile/hide his eyes. Alas, he's started doing this in our room as well, which is not exactly the best way to open your eyes at 5:30 in the morning.

Big shoes to fill

Zachary's love affair with shoes continues. While not yet at Carrie Bradshaw levels, he'll frequently bring us a pair of his own to put on -- even if he's already wearing another pair. Yes, even in the house; we've tried to establish one or two pairs as 'indoor-only'; I feel like Mr. Rogers or something. Yesterday while I was at work, he brought mommy a pair of her shoes (this in itself is generally entertaining, as grownup shoes are pretty bulky for a little man) and said "mama!", then brought her a pair of mine and said "dada".

Here's an illustration of him using his shoes more or less as intended - for wild running, and on a track no less:

At the tone, the time will be...

Most mornings, Zachary wakes up and starts whining or talking to himself at six o'clock, plus or minus one minute. (Seriously, that's a solid internal alarm clock!) I bring him into bed with us for a bit, where he snuggles, occasionally talks/whispers about blankie ("ba-ba! niiice! sah! [soft]"), and, on extra special occasions, falls back asleep for a bit. This was not one of those mornings, but it was almost as cute, as he decided to act as a one-minute snooze alarm: when he sat up, he spotted my alarm clock and started reading the digits. We got a new readout pretty much every minute, though he was pretty insistent that 1's were I's. Was it more impressive that he kept at it, or that we remained immobile lumps until he gave up on us and climbed out of bed at "seis tah fah" (6:24)?

Meh's bags are packed, she's ready to go

We're now officially into the red zone, with two weeks to Gooshie's due date -- and, as we've often been reminded, that due date being roughly plus or minus two weeks. Meh packed her hospital bag yesterday (which she insists means Gooshie will arrive late), and I've got to get going on mine as well. We've created our multiple plans for what happens if Meh goes into labor in the middle of the night, and have several friends generously on standby to watch the little man.

I've also been "grounded" as it were; I had a local conference in Seattle last week (and had to explain to the other attendees why I had an exemption from the "all cellphones must be switched off" rule), but I've passed off my talks for an upcoming London conference to other speakers, and have backup speakers on standby for a conference in San Francisco the second week of March.

Z and I performed our first experiment on Sunday with him sleeping in his big boy bed. He'd quite nearly fallen asleep on our drive home from lunch with mommy and running some errands, so I tried snuggling him and putting him into the new bunk bed, even turning on the new white noise generator we'd picked up on said errands. He happily smiled, snuggled with blankie, and squirmed a bit in the bed as if getting ready to go to sleep. I ducked out into the hall and quietly shut the door. Alas, two minutes later I heard the thumping feet on the ground, the door knob turned, and the little man was there smiling at me. He grabbed me by the hand and led me into his old bedroom, pointed at his crib, said "ba" (bed), and then waited for me to pick him up and put him in the crib. He was out cold moments later. Ah well, I guess the next step is blackout curtains for the new bedroom.

The Last Supper Revisited

The countdown continues, with 16 days left until the midpoint of the statistically probable due date. Hm, perhaps not as dramatic as just saying that we're two days from any time now! With that in mind, we wanted to have a special date night before meeting Gooshie -- and that took place last night, where we went with friends J & S to a very special Valentine's Day-themed dinner at The Herbfarm.

The Herbfarm remains as wonderful and amazing as the first time we were there, which appropriately enough was right before Zachary was born. (Meh was pregnant the second time as well, which means she still has never gotten to enjoy their flights of wine or any less-than-fully-cooked meats!) The food was incredible, the service excellent and friendly, and I'm still always extra impressed when the proprietor/host is able to talk his way down the row of staff members and introduce each by name, background, pedigree, and random accompanying trivia. We of course also took a stroll to visit the Herbfarm's resident 'recyclers', Basil and Borage, who wagged their tails and happily ate some of the leftovers from the little pail we brought with us; talk about a charmed life!

I'm a bit embarassed to admit that one of the most entertaining bits for me were these little self-enclosed hand boilers (glass sculptures filled with a colored liquid that expands and boils up to a top compartment when you put it in the palm of your hand). Which is not to say the food wasn't incredibly amazing, as was the company -- hooray for a very special date night!

House Hunters

Huge news from the east coast -- Mima and Papa are looking to move out to Seattle! The idea had been tossed around for a few months, and this weekend they took a first big step, with a brief visit to start looking for homes. We all got to hang out together in the mornings and evenings, and somehow in between they managed to see something like 30 properties during their three and a half day visit.

There were a few promising options, including one that we stopped off to check out late in the afternoon of their last day before taking the little man down to a play area at the mall and dinner at his favorite digs. One option there hadn't been available to investigate on the spot, so Zachary and I returned there yesterday afternoon with the realtor. Zachary did a great job, happily looking around without getting into too much trouble. The only hitch was when we came back up the elevator from checking out the parking garage, when he decided it would be fun to push the 'emergency assistance' button -- whoops. But the property's realtor was right there and she assured us it was all fine.

Tell me about it

Zachary's labelling skills continue to develop, with new words (or at least semblances of words) every day. Yesterday he and I went to a friend's housewarming party, and he had a great time with her dog ('dah-dee!'), petting the dog and saying 'niiiice'; grandma would be so proud. For breakfast, he now specifically asks for 'mik' (milk), 'cha cha' (Cheerios), and/or 'kah' (Kix). If I ask him whether he wants something, he'll say 'yessss' (though no is still either a head shake or 'all done'). More and more objects in his daily life have names too - 'house', 'sahss' (socks), 'sha' (shoes, and also sheep), 'pah' (pants), 'dah' (down), and others.

Oh, and he has a favorite new word for when his toy airplane propels itself into a wall, or one of his cars or trucks decides to express itself via Newtonian physics:

Thirty Days

We're down to the final month (plus or minus two weeks or so) until we get to meet Gooshie! We're all both excited and a little nervous, and keep trying to remember what things were like in the early days; if only we had a blog or something to compensate for the sleep-deprived loss of short term memory. Zachary still doesn't really indicate that he gets it, though he's got to notice that he simply can't always be "up!" in mommy's arms. Not that daddy can sustain that for extended periods either with our 30-pound little man!

Which brings us to nicknames -- what becomes of "little man" when there's another, well, "little man"? Will we recycle names? Share them between both boys? Come up with new options for Gooshie? Only time will tell; this reminds me of our question of whether Zachary would still ever go by Ziggy after he was born - didn't happen. In the meantime, the preparations continue; we took a tour of the hospital last week (this time we're using the one 10 minutes from our house rather than hiking into the city) and got a feeling for where and when to go. Meh has weekly check-ins with her midwives (with their ongoing ban on kids due to cootie spreading concerns, Z and I have stayed home, so I still haven't gotten to meet any of them), and everything has been looking on track so far. (Ptuh ptuh ptuh!)

We'll close this entry out with a video of one of Zachary's sources of constant entertainment:

Meh-ternity photos

Yesterday we had a return visit to an incredible baby/family photographer who had shot some wonderful Zachary pictures back in 2008. We'd met in that parent-baby class (she has a son just about Zachary's age, and now a younger son too) and she was starting up her photography business. A year later, she's in full swing, and even has her very own studio adjacent to her house. (This is apparently her secret to baby photography; the space can be climate controlled to a nice warm temperature, the babies can crawl around on a variety of cozy fuzzy rugs, and then conk out when she puts on a white noise generator.)

The photo shoot was fun and mellow; Zachary did great, running around and playing with Thomas (you'll likely notice the tank engine in all photos of Zachary), and the pictures of Meh are of course beautiful. We even made the photographer's blog. Hooray for beautiful pictures of my beautiful wife, son, and son-to-be; we're looking forward to seeing the final results!

Better get used to these bars, kid

Zachary's bed is built! I wrapped it up yesterday morning by hammering 60 plastic nails into the cross slats -- yes, as fun as it sounds, especially when the nails are both stubborn and right up against the edge of the bed frame. But once it was done, the mattress was hoisted up into the bed (first the bottom and later the top bunk), and Zachary immediately had to explore. He's just a little too tall to stand on the bed without his head hitting the slats for the top bunk, but he had no trouble climbing in and out of bed. We had snuggle time while watching the planes (comfortably visible from the bottom bunk), though he wouldn't quite go to sleep with the eternal dogfight in progress. Still, he's definitely enjoying spending time in his soon-to-be new room!

Who's the fairest?

We of course have plenty of pictures of the little man around the house. But it wasn't until yesterday that Zachary started looking at one of his baby pictures and saying "Zaza" (his name for himself) and then "bah-bah" (baby). Meh said he spent quite a while looking at (and talking about) himself.

The transition of the guest room to Zachary's bedroom is back on track now that we donated the futon that had been occupying the office. Today the guest bed made its way into the office, and Zachary and I continued putting together his bunk bed. Well, really I put the bed together while he ran around on his mattress playing with a truck, a plastic hammer (too bad I didn't actually get to the hammering part yet), a book, and of course talking about the circling airplane mobile. He was actually a little concerned when he walked into the room and there was no "ba" (bed) to be "up" in, but he got over it pretty quickly, and climbed around the bed frame as I assembled it. Still to come: his snazzy new Swedish dresser, rearranging some bookshelves, and painting his room's back wall.

Quick story on the paint -- Meh and he went to Meh's favorite home improvement store to pick up paint yesterday. He was having a great time looking around and up at the warehouse roof, of course particularly enjoying it when Meh took him through the ceiling fan section (alas, none of them were actually functional). She ordered the paint and picked up a few other paint supplies while it was being mixed. When Zachary showed interest, she showed him (and told him about) the paint brush. He picked up on the brush aspect and started trying to comb his hair with it, smiling the whole time. Silly little man!

English man

Zachary's been gradually developing more and more words over the past few weeks that are actually understandable -- even by those who don't speak Zachary. Unmistakably English words include: "on", "off", "up", "yeah", "eat", "socks", "cookie", "house" and "bus" (the last two often with a cutely elongated s, and now accompanied by pointing at the book or vehicle in question). There ae a few close ones as well -- "bah-bah" (baby, though also his favorite blanket), "mah-mah" (mommy), and "dah-dee" (doggy).

He's also been improving his sound effects -- sorry, I'll take the blame for that one. Here's his howling wolf (followed by his favorite 'AH-wah', which is his take on a panther growl, and must be followed by a 'rewr' and mommy or daddy tickle. The book is totally optional for this part.)

To the point

No need to make up my own milestones this time: as of yesterday, Zachary has started pointing. Granted, sometimes he opts for his thumb or some kind of gang symbol rather than the preferred index finger, but it's certainly making it easier to communicate and ask him what he's talking about. This morning, we were reading him a story and he was saying 'fafa!'. When we couldn't figure out what he was talking about, he pointed straight across the room to his giant fire truck puzzle. This has been followed by him reading several of his books and pointing at several objects while identifying them in Zachary-speak.

A few days ago, he and I went to the park and there was some kind of impromptu dog convention going on, with owners and dogs everywhere. He got very excited and happy, and hopped over to the doggies while saying "dah-dee!" One tiny dog gave him a big sloppy kiss and he thought it was very funny; he then was very good about petting the soft dogs very gently and carefully. One of the owners offered to let him feed her pooch a cookie (dog biscuit), and my immediate worry was that Zachary was going to recognize the word and try to eat it. But he was already off and running down the forest path towards more dogs a little ways away.

Say it soft and it's almost like praying

One of Zachary's favorite books at the moment is this board book about Chanukah. We often have to read it 2 or 3 times (after which time Meh and I can invoke a parental veto) before bed and naptimes. I generally ask Zachary what he wants to read, and he's got a few words relating to various books -- "ba" for the Berenstain Bears, "fa-fa" for Frances, "pah" for More Pants, and now "ha-ha" for that Chanukah book.

However, I think he's picked up that when I pronounce Chanukah, there's a very non-English sounding kh sound (or ch, Ḥ, ח, or whatever) at the beginning of the word. And sure enough, in the last day or two, when he asks for the book, he very clearly has started saying "ha-kkkkha!", with a big old guttural accent on the second syllable. Cute little Hebrew-speaking man!

You can pick your friends...

Words? Not exactly. Important things to say? Most certainly.


More exciting milestones that aren't really milestones but I'll claim them anyway: tonight when I said we were going to have bath time and should clean things up, Zachary took one of his Thomas playing cards that he'd been carrying around, and put it back into the appropriate box. Crazy. Then he was trying to figure out where to put a car he'd been playing with, and I suggested the pushcart full of the other cars. He ran over and dropped the car in. Alas, I couldn't get him to help me disassemble his Lego masterpiece (which today was easily three feet tall); he was already at the bottom of the stairs asking me to open the gate so we could head upstairs.

While he thankfully hasn't had a serious cold in a few weeks, we've discovered that Zachary actually understands the concept (if not always the logistics) of wiping his own nose. He was never a huge fan of us trying to wipe for him, so when he had a runny nose a few days ago (and was scrunching up his face to avoid the drips), we offered him a tissue and he was able to wipe it himself. Of course, soon afterwards he decided that tissues were much more fun to shred into increasingly tiny pieces, but hey, it's a start. Tonight, he had a bit of mucous on his nose during bath time. I tried to brush it away, but Zachary wasn't really interested in my hands being on his nose -- so I tried to novel approach of asking him to wipe his own nose. And voila, he did, and it was gone. Perhaps we can scratch that one off the list of dirty jobs parents have to do? Well, until Gooshie at least, so at least a reprieve for a month or two!

Barefoot, pregnant, and in the kitchen

Happy 2010! In addition to being the new year, today is my birthday. Yes, it's fun that my birthday is brought in with fireworks and a ball dropping, though it also apparently meant a missed tax break for my parents (sorry mom!), and of course means potential birthday parties are either competing with New Years Eve parties or friends' hangovers or ongoing vacations the next day. :)

Suffice it to say we didn't actually stay up until midnight last night. Consulting with other friends with kids, it sounds like surviving to 'east coast midnight' (that is, 9 pm PST) is a feat in and of itself. That said, we were of course woken up by our pyromaniacal neighborhood's traditional midnight fireworks display; somehow Zachary did manage to sleep through the crackles and booms, much as he did for the Fourth of July.

Anyway, I wanted to just do something mellow and low key for my birthday, so this morning we had a fabulous brunch/open house. It was really great, with many friends coming by, as well as quite a few kids -- Zachary did great sharing his toys, and I had a wonderful time; it was so nice to fill the house with our friends and get to catch up after not seeing many of them for some time. Meh had aimed to keep it mellow and low key as well, which of course still meant an incredible spread of freshly-filled cannoli (when I discovered they were back after a long absence Costco, I actually had grabbed and wrapped up a box for Meh for Chanukah -- it was fun to surprise her with a wrapped gift in the freezer), a wide selection of bagels, vegetables, fruits, two quiches, and of course Meh wanted to make me the birthday cake of my choice.

Cake-wise, I really had no idea this year, and wasn't sure how we'd top the yumminess of the past few years, which had featured Meh-made apple-caramel cake (2009), Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cupcakes (2008), and a DeLorean cake (2007). Breaking out of the (cake?) mold, I opted for a lemon meringue pie, which was of course amazing, and apparently had been Meh's special recipe to create for papa's birthdays when she was growing up. Zachary wanted to be "up!" as the pie was being created yesterday, so the step stool came out so he could watch the mixer. While he doesn't yet help in the kitchen (or spend much time playing with his own wooden kitchen, other than occasionally shaking his toy salt & pepper shakers like castanets), he's hugely interested in anything involving the KitchenAid.

And yes, to the title of this post, Meh had her shoes off while she was slaving over the pie (made entirely from scratch, even the crusts!). Have I mentioned I have the best and most dedicated wife in the world? Happy birthday to me indeed!